Now with Aurora store out of the picture it seems there is no real alternative to using the Google Play store for apps that cant be downloaded directly or via Fdroid.
But how bad is it actually to use Play store? I never used it before on my current phone, its no problem to create a dummy google account and the apps I need is free so no credit card needs to be registered. But what info will they actually get from my device ? Will they pull my phone number and whatnot ?
Aurora still works for now
Edit: to answer your question the play store may or may not be bad and since its closed source software we really have no good way to find out. With that said, the store requires play services and we know all the creepy stuff google knows is collected via play services. Some of these include real time location, what network type and network name or carrier, what apps are installed, how long you use apps, what sites you visit and for how long, battery charge state and percent of charge, sound status such as sound vibrate or silent, what you type on keyboards, etc
All the time I have had this android phone I have had Google Play store disabled and im running a vpn firewall so no calls from any app is going through. Would I be able to just get a few apps and then disable and firewall anything *.google.com again ?
Yeah, you could do that. Any data collected during that time would be for sure sent to google. I do not know if play services archives data to be sent or not. If it does then google may get quite a bit of previous data. Personally i run LineageOS with no gapps package even installed. If i cant access the play store i just lose access to 3 apps and will work around them. The biggest one of those is my bank so i may be forced to either do banking from my laptop (they gimp the mobile site and want you to get the app) or at worst i will switch banks